Corn Belt farmland price retreat longest since 1980s

February 12, 2016 at 3:40 pm

Farmland values in major US agricultural states ended 2015 on a weak note, recording the worst declines on some measures not seen since the 1980s’ price slump – and with further losses seen likely, official data showed.

Much watched quarterly reports from the Federal Reserve on land prices showed values in its Chicago region, covering major Corn Belt states such as Illinois, Indiana and Iowa, shedding 3% last year.

The drop, which followed a 3% fall in 2014, represented the first period of back-to-back falls in annual land prices since the mid-1980s, towards the tail end of a six-year market slump during which regional values near-halved, in a correction fuelled by soaring US interest rates.

Prices in Iowa, the top US corn-producing state, have suffered particularly badly in the latest retreat, recording a third successive year of annual decline in prices, over which prices have dropped by more than 13%, the central bank data showed.

Biggest drop since 1987

Separately, the Fed’s Kansas City bank, which covers largely Plains states, such as major wheat producers Kansas and Oklahoma, also revealed an accelerated downturn in farm prices in its region.

Price change, as measured as the average for the October-to-December quarter compared with that a year before, hit a negative 3.7% for non-irrigated cropland, the fastest rate of decline since early 1987.